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Shuhei Yoshida revealed his intention to leave the Sony Group in the group's own podcast. The news was also picked up and shared by the official PlayStation blog. Yoshida will leave Sony Interactive Entertainment and with it the PlayStation business in January.

With Yoshida's departure, Sony is losing not only a manager from the early days of PlayStation's success - he joined the team of Ken Kutaragi in 1993 –, but also a product strategist. Since his [appointment](https://www.gamesmarkt.de/games/989-studios-werden-in-sony-computer-entertainment-eingegliedert-f9982d88a8b42e305e089021f80e4644)(in German) as Vice President of Product Development of the former Sony Computer Entertainment of America in 2000 at the latest, Yoshida has played a key role in building and expanding the PlayStation product catalog. 

When he [succeeded](https://www.gamesmarkt.de/games/yoshida-leitet-sonys-spieleentwicklung-72880f6a700460d339c2b2fdc4736901) (in German) Phil Harrison as president of Sony Computer Entertainment Worldwide Studios in 2008, he was the head of PlayStation development and largely responsible for the success of the entire platform, which is so popular with the target group thanks to its exclusive first-party games. In [November 2019](https://www.gamesmarkt.de/publishing/hermen-hulst-wird-neuer-head-der-playstation-worldwide-studios-791295c844f429857d4b14c46b91f75c) (in German), Hermen Hulst took over as head of Worldwide Studios and Yoshida moved to his last position at Sony: he became Head of the Indies Initiative, a position he described as a “dream job” in his farewell interview."When I went to events like E3 or Gamescom, I always went to the indie game area. And I found games that I liked, and often times the developer was there showcasing it", says Yoshida in the Podcast. 

![Yoshida had a decisive influence on the PlayStation portfolio, particularly as President of Worldwide Studios from 2008 to 2019. (archive image)](https://s3.eu-central-1.amazonaws.com/zone.busch.store.image/c97da9fb-9de5-4a6c-9564-af57df4e69bd.jpg)

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Shuhei Yoshida is Leaving PlayStation and Sony Interactive Entertainment